Is a Therapy Student’s Time Treating a Patient Billable
A question I have been receiving often lately is can the time a therapy student or therapy assistant student is treating an outpatient receiving physical therapy, occupational therapy, and/or speech therapy be billed to the insurance carrier since the student is under the direct supervision of the therapist or assistant (if the student is a therapy assistant student)? As you can imagine, there are several answers to this question. The answers are yes, no, maybe so and depends.
Lets talk first about Medicare beneficiaries receiving outpatient physical, occupational and/or speech therapy services (i.e. paid under Medicare Part B benefits). Does the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pay the provider when the services were provided by a therapy student or therapy assistant student?
In CMS Publication
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What about acute hospital setting or acute long term care hospital?
CMS does not address the use of student’s in those settings.
How about hospital based OP setting?
That is outpatient and this article applies.